Josephine and the Turks

Charlotte quickly settled on her most recent acquisition. The book lay on its side hidden behind several volumes of Socrates translated from the Greek, but no less incomprehensible even in translation. Charlotte slipped back under her covers and positioned her lamp to better illuminate the white pages of the cool leather bound volume.

It was odd, she thought to be reading about a Frenchwoman during this time of growing tension between their two countries, but soon dismissed the thought as she leafed quickly through the introductory pages of the volume.

During the first few days of her voyage from Marseilles Josephine charms the ship's officers and fellow passengers including a handsome English engineer and Russian count with her charm, innocence and youthful beauty. All on board are secretly saddened to learn that the vibrant young bride was promised to a much older man, a friend of her father whom she barely knew - an arranged marriage of a most dubious nature.

Charlotte once again blessed her mother and her insistence that Charlotte must never be **** into a marriage. Several times in the past three years Father had tried to convince her to marry a colleague of his to secure some profitable business, but in each case he had to back down in the end. The will left by Charlotte's mother was nearly impossible to break, and the title and estate that Marlton now claimed might be at risk.

Her fingers flipped forward a chapter almost on their own to the first dramatic turn of events in the tale.

Just South of Cyprus the petite Frenchwoman is **** by a lecherous Corsican shiphand who **** her and in the darkest hours of the night slips away with his prize in a small boat. As dawn breaks the lovely Josephine awakens to find herself alone with the leering sailor in a tiny boat miles from land. His dirty hands pull at her nightdress tearing it open as she struggles against him.

As she read the vivid description of the ****, Charlotte imagined herself in the heroine's predicament, would she be able to fight off the wiry deckhand as he **** her thighs open and clawed at her bosom? Her thighs squeezed tightly together and she rocked on her bed as she relived the dreadful fight. One hand groped her tit roughly mimicking the Corsican's **** while her other hand pulled at her wrist imagining herself trying to fight off his fearful attack on her swollen breast. What chance could any woman have alone on a tiny boat against a brutal sailor intent on taking her? Breathing hard and still tingling all over, Charlotte returned to the book knowing that the heroine escapes her fate but still imagining the terror of Josephine's encounter.

Before the Corsican can overpower her completely, their little boat is overtaken by a corsair with a huge triangular sail of black and her Corsican abductor is shot dead while trying to raise the tiny boat's sail. Josephine's initial relief turns to horror when she sees the swarthy faces of the crew that peer down at her from the sloop's gunwales. Barbary pirates - the scourge of the Mediterranean - the captain is delighted with his unexpected find, particularly when a plump matron examines Josephine and pronounces her intact.

There is a near mutiny among the coarse pirates when they realize that they are to be denied the pleasures of Josephine's ripe young body. Only the pirate captain and his formidable first mate, a towering mass of muscle with skin as black as night stood between her and over two dozen lustful brutes.

Again Charlotte skipped ahead several chapters in the novel to the moment when Josephine is sold at an auction.

The pirates sell Josephine in the **** markets of Istanbul wearing nothing but a silk slip that barely covers her round breasts and thighs. The scene is memorable even without the lithograph depicting the barely covered heroine standing defiantly in front of dozens of hawk-nosed sheikhs, turbaned emirs and bejeweled sultans all eager to bid on the European beauty.

As always when she reached this section of the book, Charlotte pictured herself in the opulent auction hall and wondered if she could be as courageous as Josephine had been. The unbridled lust of the men was similar to the fire in the strange gentleman's eyes after their kiss.

What if that Highwayman was one of the men bidding for her, purchasing her to use for his carnal needs. Would he even want her long-limbed body if he could have his pick of the dozens of nearly naked girls in all shapes and sizes that were sold in that heathen flesh market. With growing excitement Charlotte returned to the titillating narrative.

Josephine was lucky, bought by a wizened old Turk too old to enjoy her the way a younger man surely would have. Josephine is delivered to his harem and though luck, wit and charm manages to avoid the old man's bed for nearly a year. It is in the harem that she first learns about the pleasurable nature of a woman's sexuality.

There are no men in the harem of course but several of the other women take great pleasure in showing the European maiden just how responsive her body could be. If Charlotte had had this book while still attending school she might have experimented a little with her roommates, at the time though it never even occurred to her that one girl might pleasure another with her fingers or mouth.

By now Charlotte's hands had pulled her nightgown to her belly and as she read her fingers were teasing the tiny nub of her sex. The pleasure of her touch grew as she read the sensual descriptions of the caresses shared by the women, and the explicit instructions given to Josephine on how to please the Sultan when and if she is brought to his bed. Charlotte had never realized that women might want to take a man in her mouth until she read the gossip of the concubines in the harem. Surely civilized women wouldn't do that to please their lovers, or would they? Flipping to the last chapters Charlotte felt her breathing quicken as she followed Josephine's story.

Eventually the old Turk dies and his son, a man even more wicked than the father - and much more energetic - discovers Josephine when he inspects his new harem. Upon learning that this hated European was still an untouched virgin the lustful Turkish lord orders the Christian beauty brought to his bed chambers that very night for her defilement.

Miraculously, Josephine is rescued from the Turk's bed just in time by the very same English engineer from the opening chapters of the novel. This earnest young gentleman had been searching for Josephine since her disappearance from the frigate months ago; with the **** of Josephine's former owner, rumours of the pretty Frenchwoman in the harem reached his sources.

After fleeing together from the sultan's estate, Josephine and the young gentleman hide in a overgrown thicket. Night falls, and the pair cling together for warmth, she wearing only a flimsy silk negligent and the hero dressed in a stolen eunuch's leggings and jeweled vest.

By now Charlotte was writhing under her thin sheet, her digits feverously fingering the burning spot hidden under the curls between her legs as she read and reread the paragraph where the virile young Turkish lord pins Josephine on his great bed forcing her thighs apart under his thrusting hips. Then flipping ahead a few pages to the tender moment when Josephine and her rescuer lie pressed together in the soft moss hiding from the Ottoman's searching guards in the dark hours of the night.

The author was vague about how Josephine and her British engineer spent the cold night, but on her bed Charlotte spread her legs open as she continued stroking her clit. She knew that she would have surely surrendered herself happily to this handsome savior. Charlotte was not bothered by the fact that the young lovers were sinning in the eyes of the Church; far better to reward the brave Englishman then to loose her virginity to a squad of brutal uncircumcised heathens who might pull her from the bushes at any moment. She could only imagine the excitement the petite Frenchwoman might have felt as spread her legs under the brave gentleman or the surprise the gallant hero must have felt to discover that the lovely girl in his arms was still unclaimed after nearly a year in the sultan's harem.

And then it happened - Charlotte had pleasured herself before, but never before had her body exploded with such intensity. She tried to keep her lips sealed, but a long moan of pleasure filled the silent room.

Usually when Charlotte pleasured herself while reading these romances, the lovers were faceless, but tonight the image of Josephine's savior and lover was that of the blond haired gentleman by the brook. She wasn't even sure she'd be able to look him in the face if she met with him tomorrow at the old chapel.

How loud had she been she wondered as she pulled back her robes and thought over her loss of control, could anyone have heard her needy moan and recognized it for what it was?